dance through life

July 30, 2018

the rewrite sessions

Revisions are now complete for the first five L.A. stories, as well as Nos. 10 and 11. Currently working on No. 6, and that will leave just three to go in order to have them all in narrativized format. I am trying to apply my beta reader's notes throughout.

One thing that's kind of surprised me is that I am now listening to music while I write. This was never a thing for me. I listen to my iPod in the car (which is a lifesaver with a one-hour-each-way commute, and which needs to be resynched). But in general, though I am a musician and love all kinds of music, I don't listen to music at home.

Till now!

After finding myself ordering four albums in the last month, I'm thinking it may make sense to try out Amazon's unlimited streaming service. Mr. P suggested it and I said "eh" but that was before two digital albums joined the two tango CDs I just got.

I am adding a playlist to each novella - kind of a soundtrack for the story - and that's led me to wanting to find some new music. I recently got a three-album download of Carmen McRae, who's a simply gorgeous singer, and who I stumbled across while looking for a good cover of "My Romance."

If this writing binge crashes to a halt, I can always cancel the service. But I wouldn't be surprised if I find myself using it to listen to albums I already own on CD, just because it's easier. My CD library is fairly well organized, but it's still a PITA to pull out a box, find the CD, load it in the boombox ... eh. The digital life has made me lazy. Lazier.

On the plus side, if the writing binge *doesn't* crash, and I keep wanting to listen to music at home, the service would help me pull the trigger on divesting some more of the CDs. I got rid of a lot of them several years back, but there are still ... a lot ... taking up space in a cabinet.

I guess the next time I need a mindless task, I should catalogue the CDs and make a note as to which ones I don't go back to super-frequently. As with most decluttering projects, this one would involve making sure I actually *can* stream an album before I divest it; some of my favorites are, I know, not available in any other format than disc.

These are the image files for each of my published works of fiction.
The L.A. Stories (currently twelve separate novellas) are available singly for Kindle and Kindle apps from Amazon.com; and collected 3 at a time in paperback or e-book editions, also from Amazon.
The L.A. Stories are being reworked and will be republished as completed, in e-book and paperback formats.
The four full-length novels are available for both Kindle and paperback formats.